


Elevators Are Confined Spaces

by TheGabbing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comedy, Elevators, First Meetings, Fluff, Funny, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-08-11 22:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7909966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGabbing/pseuds/TheGabbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance absolutely did not normally bitch and moan about how hot a guy was right in front of him... But this guy didn't speak english, so it was fine... probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> just a little thing inspired but an ask that Klance-klance-revolution got on tumblr.

The first time the mysterious hot Korean man entered the elevator, Lance didn’t even notice. It wasn’t like he was purposely trying not to notice. It was his second day on a very stressful job, and juggling his boss’s coffee and breakfast was more important to him than looking at a very, _very_ , hot Korean man.

In fact, Lance didn’t even notice the man until his second week on the job. He was running a bit late, and again, juggling multiple items, when he caught the elevator door with his foot. The papers squished under his armpit fell and he shoved the coffee and breakfast bagel into the nearest set of hands. “Hold this please,” Lance spat out quickly as he dropped to the ground to gather the rather important papers.

It only took him a few seconds to stuff everything back into the folder, albeit it was a little messily done, and pick himself back up. Lance put the folder back under his armpit and grabbed the breakfast bagel and coffee from the person he had forced it on. He sighed and looked up to apologize to the victim of his tardiness but stopped short when he was faced with a beautiful, and he meant _beautiful_ , man.

He had a mullet. In what backwards fantasy universe does a man that works in _this_ building, have a mullet. Lance started to blubber and stutter around his words as he forced out his apology, trying his damn fucking hardest not to spit out that he could stare into the man’s eyes all day. The man raised his eyebrows at him and Lance just ducked his head and all but sulked in the corner of the elevator. He was just thankful that no one else was in the elevator to witness that failure.

The man brought up his phone to his ear again and spoke into it. The second he did, Lance’s blush just got deeper. He wasn’t speaking English. Of course, that’s why he looked so confused and annoyed, he probably didn’t even know what Lance was saying. If Lance didn’t have food in his hand, he would have slammed his hand to his face. Sometimes, he was just a complete idiot.

Luckily, he had the perfect person to complain to whenever he was being an idiot, and that person was coming on the elevator in two floors.

When the doors opened up, Lance tries to discretely communicate to Pidge that he needs her right fucking now. Unfortunately, like usual, Pidge’s eyes are glued to her phone, tapping away at what, Lance would assume, is some code for a new program she was working on. Even when she was just getting to work, she was doing something for it.

Pidge finally looked up, a shocked look on her face when she realized the elevator door opened. “Sorry…” Pidge mumbled, barely taking her eyes off of her phone when she walked into the elevator. She settled herself on the back wall next to Lance. He waited patiently for Pidge to pause her coding before he nudged her to get her attention. Last time he didn’t wait, he accidentally caused her to delete every line of code she did that morning. Pidge didn’t talk to him for a week.

As soon as Pidge stopped, Lance shoved him a little too hard with his elbow, causing Pidge to lose her balance and almost fall to the ground. The commotion caused the man to turn around and Lance just looked at his shoes, hoping to dear god the man didn’t think he was too pathetic yet. When the man returned to talking in a foreign language, Lance turned back to Pidge and made a _holy fucking shit do you see that man_.

 However, compared to Hunk, Pidge was absolute shit at reading his facial expressions so Lance just whispered, “What I meant was that man is literally the hottest piece of ass I’ve seen in years.”

Pidge’s eyes flicked over to the man, “Lance…”

“Relax, he doesn’t understand English. Besides, I’m being quiet,” Lance said, trying to pacify Pidge’s worry. His friend just raised her eyebrows and sighed at him, shaking her head. “What?”

“Dude, I want you to remember this day,” Pidge said.

Lance sighed, staring at the back of the man’s head, “Trust me, I will… Do you see his hair? I just wanna run my hand through it a billion different times.” The elevator door opened at a new floor and the man walked out, causing Lance to pout. He really hoped that man would be back the next day

As luck would have it, the man did come back. Every. Single. Day. Lance almost died every time he stepped into the elevator and every single time Pidge walked in, Lance cried over the Korean man’s beauty to her. She rolled her eyes most of the time and was usually coding while he did it but Lance didn’t mind. He knew that Pidge didn’t really care about appearances in people. She was about as asexual as you could get.

Every time Pidge would step into the elevator, Lance would bitch and moan quietly about the man, and over the next few days, he got a little louder in his whining, but not once did the man say anything. To be honest, Lance was glad the man couldn’t understand English or his crush on him would have been so much worse.

Around two weeks after he first saw the man, Lance was having a particularly annoying day. His boss was being generally annoying, which wasn’t really his fault. Shiro was stressed because people weren’t doing what they were supposed to, and as a result, he asked Lance if he could get him an espresso coffee every two hours, on the hour. It was nice to get out of the office, but every time, he would have to transfer the calls to Allura’s receptionist, Coran, and Coran would just give him this look of utter annoyance.

Around the third time Lance went to get Shiro coffee, Shiro was actually in a meeting. So waited outside the door, which was glass, until Shiro noticed him. When he did, he motioned for Lance to walk into the conference room. Lance kept his head down and out of the way of anybody as he placed the coffee cup down on the table. The presenter was still speaking so before Lance left, he looked up to silently say sorry to them, but his entire face went up in flames when he did.

It was the man. The really hot, really mysterious, totally _not_ foreign man. The guy raised his eyebrows at Lance, obviously know the conclusion that Lance came to, and continued on speaking in fluent, not accented, English. If Lance didn’t think Shiro would scold him for it later, he would have run out of that conference room. Instead, he just quietly tiptoed back, and waited for the door to shut before he ran, practically screaming Pidge’s name, to Pidge’s office.

Her office was across the floor, in the right corner of the building, and he was pretty sure he got a lot of weird looks on his way. Lance ran through the door, ignoring Pidge’s receptionist’s protests, and yelled, “The hot Korean man understands English!”

She barely looked up from her computer, giving him a _duh_ look. “Yes… I told you Lance, remember that day.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me he understood English!” Lance yelped, looking at his friend with an utterly betrayed look on his face.

Pidge shrugged her shoulders, “I found it funny. I bet Keith did too.”

Lance’s hands flew into the air. “You knew his name too!” He scoffed and stormed out of Pidge’s office. Lance tried his best to ignore the cackling that followed him.

Great. Fucking great. Not only was did that man understand English and knew exactly what Lance thought and would like to do, to his ass, but Pidge knew that he could understand him all along. He had to get some better friends.

The rest of his day was just him respectively thinking about all the times he called the man, or Keith, hot, and slamming his head on his desk. Every time he did it, Shiro gave him a look from his office and Lance found himself cursing the fact that his office had glass walls. How the hell was he supposed to keep his overwhelming embarrassment secret from his boss.

When it came time to get Shiro another coffee, Lance quietly dragged himself to the elevator, sulking. He had absolutely no chance with Keith now… not that he had a chance before, but it was even less of a chance now. At least he knew when Keith was in the elevator and could just avoid him.

But, of course, Lance had terrible luck and when the elevator door opened, standing there was Keith. Lance just slunk back to the corner of the elevator, keeping his head down. He refused to look at Keith’s face; it was just too god damn embarrassing to do that. In fact, Lance was completely sure he would never be able to look at him again. Which, really, Lance thought was very unfortunate because Keith was beautiful.

The one thing that did bother him more than anything was that Keith knew. All along, he knew that Lance thought he was a hot piece of shit and he said nothing. Didn’t tell him to stop or that he could understand him. Why the fucking hell would he not say anything?

And, because Lance literally had no sense of self-preservation, he opened his dumb mouth and muttered out, “Why didn’t-”

“Did you really not know?” Keith asked. Lance’s head snapped up to look at the Keith’s mullet. Keith didn’t turn around to see his face or anything, just continued staring at the door, waiting for the elevator to go down to the floor he clicked.

Lance shook his head until he remembered that Keith couldn’t see him and he croaked out, “I’m not my smartest in the mornings.”

“I noticed,” he responded. Lance remained quiet, just watching the back of Keith’s mullet. Really, it was a pretty great mullet. Hell if he knew how Keith was able to have a mullet when he was an international correspondent. Who the hell decided it was okay for him to have a mullet? It was criminal, that was what it was. His mullet was the entire reason Lance made such an ass of himself.

Before he knew it, the elevator door was opening and Keith was walking out. Lance pouted only a little bit, just a little bit glad that he wouldn’t have to stand in the elevator with him for long. Keith stepped out of the elevator and stopped short. Lance’s head tilted in confusion until Keith turned around and grabbed Lance’s arm. A pen practically appeared in Keith’s hand and he scrawled something quickly before the doors closed again.

“That’s my number. Don’t make me regret that,” Keith said. Lance’s jaw dropped open and he stared at Keith as he walked around the corner.

When the doors closed, all Lance could do was scream.


	2. Keith's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the long awaited Keith POV!

Elevators were probably the worst thing in existence. Sure, they allowed you to get from floor to floor without breaking a sweat, but they were horrifyingly tight and confined spaces. If Keith didn’t work on the billionth floor, he would never take the elevator. In fact, every time someone walked in and pressed the second floor button, he couldn’t help but turn his nose at them. Who, by choice, would sit in a crowded elevator.

Granted, the elevator was rarely crowded when he got there in the morning, but still.

Shiro said it was just because Keith was stuck up, but really elevators were the worst...

Most of the time.

Keith was listening to his mother snip at him in Korean, berating him over the fact that he still didn’t have a boyfriend. He came out to his mother, step-dad, and Shiro and all his mother did was just change the gender of the people she tried to set him up with. _Oh Ms. Hung has a nice young man, just came back from a year abroad, very cultured_. The list went on. He tried to pipe in that he didn’t need her setting up with blind dates as the elevator doors opened. Keith barely had time to look up before someone was shoving coffee and a bagel into his hands.

“Hold this, please,” said a man who all but dropped to the ground, gathering papers that flew across the floor. Keith moved quickly to press the open door button with his elbow, just so it wouldn’t close on him. It was the best he could do since his hands were full and he couldn’t actually hold the doors.

The man stuffed the papers back in the folder as quickly as he could before he put it back under his armpit. He got up and grabbed the things he shoved into Keith’s hands mere moments ago. With a sigh, the weird man looked up at him. His mouth opened and a small squeak came from his mouth.

“I-I, uh, shit, huh, ah, sorry, I- I’ll just-” A layer of pink flooded the man’s face and Keith couldn’t help but feel his heart beat a little faster in his chest. He was beautiful, literally beautiful. Keith was positive he’s never seen him before because if he did, he would really not have this problem of his mother setting him up with people.

But, being the unsociable asshole he was, Keith just raised his eyebrows at the man. He ducked his head and moved to the corner of the elevator. Feeling a little embarrassed with his rude response, Keith just brought his phone back to his ear.

His mother was still prattling along and feeling his face grow a little hot, Keith decided to do something maybe a little stupid. “Mom, you don’t have to set me up with anybody.” The Korean easily left his mouth, with no pause or delay. It was his first language after all.

“Eh? You went and got a boyfriend without telling me? Keith, you wound your mother.”

Keith tried not to flinch and said, “Mom, no, I do not have a boyfriend.” Trying to be subtle, Keith checked over his shoulder quickly. The man’s head was in his hands and he seemed to be mumbling some nonsense in Spanish. Sometimes he wished he had taken Spanish when Shiro did. Either way, his lack of reaction showed that he wasn’t one of those people who learned Korean. “I just found someone that I’m thinking of asking out.”

His mother squealed happily and started asking him a ton of unnecessary questions that he didn’t have the answers to yet. Where did he work, what did he look like, is he nice, does he drive, how is his family, is he religious. Keith gave vague answers that he would fill out after he asked the man out. He just had to... gather some courage first... and get off the phone with his mother. He would not have his mother listen to him fumble around and ask someone for coffee.

“Okay, mom, yes, can I just... Fine, I’ll ask him out now,” Keith said, he put the phone on mute and dropped it into his pocket. No doubt his mother was still hanging onto her phone anxiously.

He would turn around and ask the man for coffee in three... two... on-

The elevator doors opened up. Keith huffed angrily and tried his best not to glare at the small girl who stood in front of them. She just stared at her phone, tapping away at it like some teenager. He swore, the people that this company hired. Keith cleared his throat softly and the girl jumped a little bit. Her eyes met Keith’s and they widened.

“Sorry...” Pidge mumbled, going back to her phone and walking to the elevator. She settled in the back, right next to the man. Great. There was no way he could ask the man out now. He would just have to wait until tomorrow. Of course, his mom was going to think that he just made up the guy if he told her that he didn’t ask yet. Keith groaned internally.

The doors closed slowly and as they passed the fifth floor, Keith heard a hissed _hey_ , and some shuffling. Keith turned around to see the girl glaring at the man, who was staring at his shoes like they were Beyoncé.

Keith returned his eyes to the doors of the elevator and took his phone out of his pocket. “He’s busy.”

She huffed, just like Keith thought she would, and started lecturing him about how it was rude to lie to his mother.

“I’m not lying. I’m in an elevator, someone walked in, I’ll ask tomorrow. I promise.”

His mother was continuing to lecture him when he heard someone whisper behind him.

“What I meant was that man is literally the hottest piece of ass I’ve seen in years.”

Keith froze, his cheeks turning bright red. Oh my god. Did that man understand Korean? What if he was just making fun of Keith now? Great, he would have to tell his mother that the guy he was attracted to was just an asshole. She would use this as ammo for years to come. His mother’s rant didn’t stop so he was just glad that she didn’t hear him.

“Lance…” The girl said.

_Lance_. His name was Lance. He might be an asshole but at least now Keith knew the name of the asshole. He could use it to have Shiro fire him... hopefully.

“Relax, he doesn’t understand English. Besides, I’m being quiet,” Lance said. If it was even possible, Keith’s face went even redder. The guy didn’t know he spoke English. How did he not know that – oh... well, he supposes he hadn’t been speaking English.

 “What?” Lance hissed again.

“Dude, I want you to remember this day,” the girl said, amusement filling her voice. Well... it’s obvious the girl knew him and that he spoke English. Why the hell would the guy not? He must be new... He had to be new.

There was a heavy sigh behind him. “Trust me, I will… Do you see his hair? I just wanna run my hand through it a billion different times.” Keith was almost unable to contain his sputtering. As soon as the doors opened, Keith all but ran out of there, hoping to whatever powerful being out there that Lance didn’t see his face.

“Mom, I have to go, I’m at work now.” Keith said in plain English, looking back only once to see the doors had closed long before he said that. He hung up on his mother and continued to his office.

He passed Shay’s desk and told her to get a hold of Shiro or Allura for him. “Both... Actually both,” and shut the doors to his office.

He ran his hands through his hair and then quickly stopped because his brain decided to fill it with the thought that amazingly hot Latino wanted to run his hands through his hair. Holy shit. His phone beeped as Shay patched Shiro and Allura through.

The second they both were on, Keith sputtered out. “Is there a new guy named Lance starting today?”

It was silent for a good few seconds before Shiro and Allura both started laughing hysterically. Keith’s face burned hot as he told them to shut up, his voice cracking. It only made them laugh harder and he plopped down into his desk chair. He could tell they they wouldn’t shut up for a while.

He crossed his arms in front of him and pouted. All he asked was one god damn question and they started laughing at him. Between the laughs, Shiro and Allura squeaked words of _I told you_ and _you owe me 50$_. Keith tried his best not to yell at them to shut up anymore, it would only make it worse.

After what seemed like forever, Allura finally stopped laughing to explain to him why they found his question so hilarious. “You remember the new P.A. that Shiro is getting? Well... That’s Lance.”

Keith’s cheeks burned and he was just grateful that they couldn’t see him right now. “And? Still doesn’t explain his laughter.”

Shiro sighed over the phone, “The second Lance left my office after the interview, Allura bet me fifty bucks that the moment you saw him, you would be attracted to him.”

“Great, I tell you guys I’m gay and you use it for monetary gain. Appreciate it.” Keith grumbled.

Allura groaned, “Oh Keith, don’t be a spoil sport. I just thought that you would really appreciate his butt.”

“... He has a great butt?”

His question sent them into another fit of laughter, and Keith just groaned and hung up the conference call. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to see Lance again. Maybe Lance would actually be a terrible assistant and Shiro would fire him.

But the universe, of course, has it against him, and Lance doesn’t get fired. In fact, he probably the best assistant that Shiro’s ever had. It is probably the only reason why Keith doesn’t beg Shiro to fire him. He can continue pretending he only speaks Korean if it means that Shiro doesn’t have to try out ten new assistants before he gets a good one again. And hey, he can still admire Lance from afar.

He calls Shiro ahead almost every day, on his cell phone to by-pass Lance, when he has to go up and see him. More often than not, because his family isn’t that bad, they meet in his own or Allura’s office.

The only problem was, that there was no way he would be able to avoid Lance in the elevator. One day he attempted to see if he could take the stairs. Shay ended up almost calling the medics in the building because he practically passed out. So he continued to use the elevator and either never spoke or called someone he knew who spoke Korean.

Every day for two weeks, Lance was in the elevator. The friend who was in the elevator the first time is almost always there as well.

Lance seemed to get more confident with his assumption that he didn’t speak English. He got louder and louder, and once even moaned that he would like to sit on his face. Keith became so red at the thought that he tried the stairs again that day.

It was fine. It wasn’t like Lance would actually ever see him speaking English. Any time he had to go up to Shiro’s floor to make a presentation, he would triple check that Shiro sent him out or kept him at his desk. Shiro was getting constantly annoyed about it, but he would still do it, for Keith at least.

One day, Keith ended up having to present a new project to the board. It was something to make communicating with foreign countries a bit easier, that way they wouldn’t have to call someone who spoke the foreign language every single time. While for Keith, Shiro, and Allura, it wasn’t much a problem, for some of the older... whiter, board members, it was a big problem.

As Keith was explaining the software, he saw Shiro look to the door. He paused for a moment but continued when Shiro seemed to wave someone in. Keith was just explaining how it allowed people to translate into their native language with little to no mistakes (unlike google translate) when he walked in.

Lance.

His head was dropped to the floor, and he quietly placed the cup of coffee on the table in front of Shiro. Luckily, Keith was used to Shiro and Allura making faces at him in the back of the board room, so he continued his presentation with ease. His heart was thudding in his chest like a god damn jackhammer, but at least nobody could tell. It was, at least, something he considered a talent of his.

He was half hoping that Lance wouldn’t pick up his head, and in a way, half hoping he did. He wanted Lance to see that he was speaking English. Then again... what the hell would he say to him if Lance did see.

_Hey, yeah, I totally know that you want to sit on my face and grab my ass every other second of every single day, and I didn’t say anything because I was too scared to._

Because that makes sense.

Just as Lance was about to leave the room, he lifted up his head. His mouth looked poised to mouth an apology to him but the moment his eyes landed on Keith’s, he stopped. His entire face turned completely red. So red, Keith almost stumbled over his words. Keith rose his eyebrows at Lance, just wishing he got the _please get out so I don’t die of embarrassment_ message he was trying to send. His eyes widened and he just slowly tiptoed out of the room, his eyes never leaving Keith’s.

As soon as the door shut, he could have sworn he heard a loud yell and the ground thundered.

Great. Fucking great.

Thankfully, he was able to finish the entire presentation with no more screw-ups. He still couldn’t stop thinking about Lance. Hell, he probably thought that he was an idiot asshole right now. When the meeting ended, Keith peaked out to see whether Lance was at his desk. Sighing happily, Keith turned back his attention to Shiro and Allura.

“Shiro’s office. Now.”

The two rolled their eyes at him but followed him into Shiro’s office nevertheless. As soon as the door was closed, Keith threw his hands up.

“Nope. Fuck. I’m never going to be able to date him now.” Keith yelped.

Allura sighed behind him and Shiro just sat down at his desk. “Keith...”

“I swear to god, there is no way that I’m going to be able to come back from this. He probably thinks I’m an asshole, multilingual guy, who thinks it was funny to fuck with him!” Keith whined. His hands wrung themselves as he paced back and forth. Allura stood by the door, looking like she just wanted to go back to her office.

“Just... I don’t know, leave early today, take a bit to think on how you will explain shit to Lance,” Shiro grumbled, already turning his computer back on. Keith turned his nose up at the thought. He hadn’t left early in years, hell most of the time he left work late. There was no way in hell that he would allow this one thing to throw him off his game.

Saying a quick stilted goodbye to Allura and Shiro, Keith made his way back down to his office. For the rest of the day he juggled his work and feeling disgustingly guilty. He tried to come up with anyway to explain why he did what he did, but Keith was coming up blank. Every time he thought of a different scenario, Keith ended up slamming his head on his desk in hopelessness. Shay ran into his office for the first three times but ended up ignoring anytime she heard a loud bang after that.

As time went on and no options were posited in front of him, leaving early began to show its appeal. It wasn’t like anybody would accuse him of slacking off and he had gotten everything urgent done already. All he had to do was drop something off at H.R and I.T.

Keith told Shay to take the rest of the day off as he walked out of his office. When the elevator doors opened, they were luckily empty. All he had to do was take the elevator up to H.R. and then down again without running into Lance. It should be easy.

But again... the universe hates him.

After he dropped the stuff off and started to take the elevator down, the doors opened on Shiro’s floor. Lance stood there when the doors opened fully. His face went pink and he quietly slunk to the back of the elevator. Not once did he look at Keith in the eye. It almost made Keith want to swear. All he had to do was take the elevator down. Just ignore everything that he wanted to say and keep trudging along. But as the elevator passed floor after floor, Keith shifted. He needed to know.

Behind him, he heard Lance draw in a breath. “Why didn’t-”

“Did you really not know?” Keith interrupted. Too scared to turn around, Keith kept his eyes trained on the doors. There was a shuffle behind him and Keith felt his hands clench out of nervousness.

“I’m not my smartest in the mornings.”

Stupidly, Keith automatically said, “I noticed.” Now if Lance didn’t think he was an asshole before, he really thought it now. Lance didn’t respond and it took everything Keith had not to turn around and see what Lance was feeling.

Thankfully the doors opened to the I.T. floor and Keith stepped through them. He was about to turn towards the receptionist when he stopped.

If he didn’t try now, there was no way that he would try later.

Taking in a deep shaking breath, Keith grabbed a pen from his pocket and turned around quickly. He took two steps back to Lance, grabbed his arm, and scrawled his number. It wasn’t the prettiest he could write but he really just wanted to get it over with and forget it ever happened.

“That’s my number. Don’t make me regret that,” Keith said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking. Lance’s jaw dropped open and Keith couldn’t help but give a small smile. He turned and walked around the corner, feeling a little happier when he heard a muted scream coming from the elevator.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed, sorry it took me so long!
> 
> As always, I appreciate every kudos, comment, subscribe and bookmark! You can find me on tumblr @thegabbing

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! first voltron fic but pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Hopefully more to come, I have two more ideas in my head for them so...
> 
> anyways, as always, kudos, comments, bookmarks, and subscribes are very much appreciated. My tumblr is TheGabbing, hmu and come cry about this show, i will love u.
> 
> \- EDIT - 
> 
> There will be a Keith POV to this story. Subscribe for more!


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